


through the gray sheeted hour

by renecdote



Series: Hugs [1]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Angst, Cuddling, Episode: s05e07 Ina Paha (If Perhaps), Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, reference to canon character deaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:47:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24777895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renecdote/pseuds/renecdote
Summary: “I said I’m fine.”Steve stares helplessly back at him, tears no longer falling but their tracks so clearly painted on his splotchy face.It makes Danny snort, choking on a giggle. They’re a mess. Christ, the both of them, they’re such a mess.Coda for 5.07. In which Steve and Danny both need (and get) hugs.
Relationships: Steve McGarrett & Danny "Danno" Williams, Steve McGarrett/Danny "Danno" Williams
Series: Hugs [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1792072
Comments: 10
Kudos: 146





	through the gray sheeted hour

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't actually write this with them being together in mind but when I read through it last night I realised it is probably more implied relationship than I thought? So anyway it's tagged both, read as friendship or more it's up to you.
> 
> For the hug prompt: hurt/comfort.
> 
> Title from the poem 'The Bird' by W. S. Merwin (Fun fact Merwin grew up in New Jersey then moved to Hawaii later in life. Which I did not know when I chose the title but thought was fitting anyway.)

Steve is crying, silently, breath barely hitching as hot tears slide down his face. Danny doesn’t think—doesn’t have to think—he just flings an arm over Steve’s waist, presses his face against the back of his neck, still half asleep.

“‘S okay,” he mumbles. “You’re okay, babe.”

A shudder runs through Steve and he sucks in a sharp breath, holding it, like he has been given permission to feel but doesn’t know how. Danny tightens his hold, feeling a stab of anger towards the navy and John and Doris McGarrett—and Wo Fat, god, fucking Wo Fat—but he roughly pushes it down. Anger isn’t going to help now. Maybe later, when the gaping pain of loss doesn’t feel so fresh, a four-year band-aid ripped off and the wound found still weeping. Maybe after that healing has begun again, but not right now.

Steve is tense, grief personified and frozen solid, muscles wound so tight that Danny’s own muscles ache in sympathy. He moves his hand up and gently rubs Steve’s chest, careful to avoid the patchwork of gauze he can feel beneath the thin cotton shirt. Steve makes a sound in the back of his throat, part confused, part distressed, and Danny mumbles more reassuring nonsense against the back of his neck. He suspects the words are too run together with sleep to be articulate; he also suspects it doesn’t really matter.

“Stop,” Steve rasps.

It pulls Danny back from the brink of sleep, enough that he lifts his head, trying to get a glimpse of Steve’s face in the darkness.

“Trapped,” Steve gets out. “I feel—your arm—“

Danny rolls away like he’s been burnt. “Shit, sorry, I didn’t—”

Didn’t mean to. Didn’t think. Didn’t realise.

Steve’s breathing is a deliberate kind of even. Four in, hold, four out. “‘S fine,” he says.

It’s not.

Danny is wide awake now, staring up at the ceiling while his mind lurches and his heart squeezes painfully.

Steve twitches—no, shivers—and Danny realises with another flash of guilt that he’d taken all the covers with him in his haste to get away. He sits up, carefully straightening them out, making sure Steve is covered. There is enough moonlight to see that his eyes are closed, tears still sliding down his cheeks. He lies still and silent, bearing the fussing without the usual grumbling it would evoke.

It’s been two days since they found him; two days since Wo Fat kidnapped and tortured him; two days since Steve put a bullet in Wo Fat’s head and cried in Danny’s arms because he didn’t remember that his father was dead.

It’s been two of the longest damn days of Danny’s life. 

“You wanna talk about it?” he asks quietly. He waits for the head shake he’s sure is coming, the tear-choked no as it all gets shoved back down somewhere deep and dark where Danny has to squint to see it.

But Steve surprises him by sitting up. The covers fall to his lap and he stares down at them for a long moment before he sniffs and wipes at his nose then his eyes. Danny gives him all the time he needs to compose himself, figure out the words, figure out whether he even wants to say them. He bends his good knee to his chest, wraps his arms around it because if he doesn’t he’s going to reach out and pull Steve into another hug, and he’s not sure that would be welcomed right now.

“I think I was dreaming,” Steve says eventually. “It was... I don’t know, they gave me some kind of hallucinogen or psychotropic; it kept knocking me out, giving me these really vivid dreams.”

Danny knows some of this. Or guessed, at least, despair coalescing in his stomach with every puzzle piece, every mumbled word of anguish that had fallen from Steve’s lips while the drugs did their best to shake him apart on their way out of his body. Steve is telling him though, Steve is sharing, so he keeps his mouth shut and listens.

“It was just like any other nightmare at first. I was transporting Anton Hesse and my phone rang and... And I heard the gunshot, but then I heard your voice and you were telling me my dad was alive and I came home and saw him and—“ Steve breaks off, breath hitching, shuddering, voice barely a whisper when he adds, “It felt so real, Danny. God, it felt so real.”

He presses the heels of his hands against his eyes, bends forward under the weight of grief, no less heavy for the years that have passed. Danny’s chest aches sharply; for himself as much as Steve. He knows that grief. Knows it all too well. It’s been less than two months since he buried Mattie and every time he thinks it’s getting easier, something comes along that drives fresh shards of glass through his chest. When he stepped into that laundry basement and saw Steve lying there, the gun in Wo Fat’s hand, the smell of gunpowder in the air, he’d thought—

He’d thought that he would be burying Steve too.

But Steve hadn’t been dead and the relief when it came was almost dizzying.

Then Steve asked to see his dad and his face—god, it _crumpled_ when Danny said he was dead, and Danny’s heart had shattered right alongside his partner’s because two months was not nearly long enough to forget what that tidal wave of grief felt like. 

Feels like.

Fuck. 

Fuck. Now Danny is crying.

It's the kind of crying where he doesn't even know why it's happening, can't pinpoint what exactly set him off except for _everything._ Because he misses his brother; because Steve is upset; because Steve _doesn't get_ upset, he just doesn't, even when Danny thinks he should, so for him to be crying— 

It's like a sledgehammer to the chest. His best friend was fucking _tortured_ and Danny doesn't know how to fix it.

He thinks he’s being quiet about it, hidden in the darkness, but he’s obviously not quiet enough because it isn’t long before there is an alarmed sounding “Danno?” from beside him.

Danny sniffs, wipes ineffectually at his eyes; traitorous bastards that they are they just spill another wave of tears down his cheeks. It doesn’t stop him from croaking, “‘M fine, shut up.”

“What’s wrong?” Steve persists. “Danny, what’s—"

“I said I’m fine.”

Steve stares helplessly back at him, tears no longer falling but their tracks so clearly painted on his splotchy face.

It makes Danny snort, choking on a giggle. They’re a mess. Christ, the both of them, they’re such a mess.

He battles down the spike of hysteria and manages to say, “I wanna hug you. Can I hug you?”

Steve doesn't hesitate.

“Yeah, Danno, ‘course, anything you need.”

It’s not their best hug. It’s a little awkward, actually, because Danny hasn’t quite worked out whether he’s giving comfort or receiving it; hasn’t worked out how to do either without hurting Steve. Steve, for his part, is just as careful; maybe too sore to do his usual octopus routine, their spines twisted uncomfortably because the position is really not ideal for prolonged hugging. Or maybe he’s worried about breaking Danny if he hugs too hard, which is bullshit, but would be more bullshit if Danny didn’t feel a little like falling apart was a very real possibility. 

His fingers tighten automatically when Steve tries to pull away. Steve goes still; the kind of still Danny had to hold himself that time he got caught in front of a motion-sensor bomb. It’s not a good still. Danny makes himself let go.

“Sorry,” he mutters.

Steve shakes his head. “Here, we can—“

He pushes Danny back on the mattress, gets them both lying down again and starts tugging at the covers, pushing and pulling at Danny until he’s lying on his side and Steve is pressed against his back.

“I was s’posed to be comforting you,” Danny tries to protest, even as he’s settling back against Steve’s chest, careful not to lean too heavily, mindful of the electric burns that Steve would never admit are causing him pain.

‘S fine. This ‘s good.”

“Oh good,” Danny huffs. “The things I do for you." He shakes his head. "I’m never the little spoon, Steven.”

“Jus' go to sleep, Danno,” Steve mutters right beside Danny’s ear. He wriggles a little, gets his arm comfortable around Danny’s waist, presses his nose against the back of Danny’s neck. His face feels hot, which is maybe just because of all the crying, or maybe a sign of possible infection that Danny needs to keep an eye on. Those electrical burns looked pretty nasty, the one look he got at them before they were covered in dressings, and there are all those needle marks, too, not to mention the gash from the bullet that was a fraction of an inch away from—

“Stop thinking.”

“I wasn’t thinking.”

“Y’re always thinking.” 

Danny huffs. Steve squeezes him a little tighter.

“Sleep,” he repeats, firmer this time, more like a command. 

Danny grumbles on principle, but he does close his eyes, relaxing into the feeling of Steve’s warmth and Steve’s breathing and—Steve. Just Steve. 

He’s pretty sure Steve relaxes as well. The pain isn’t gone, not even close, but for now the band-]aid has been fixed a little more firmly over the wound. Still weeping, but not bleeding out, not as long as they have each other to keep the pressure on, keep each other held together. Literally held, if that’s what it takes. 

When Danny sleeps, his dreams are just that little bit better for it. He can only hope the same is true for Steve.

**Author's Note:**

> ~~Steve is a control freak even when hugging but it's fine because Danny loves him~~
> 
> Thanks for reading! Comments and kudos are love ❤️ You can also find me on tumblr [here](https://renecdote.tumblr.com) if you'd like.


End file.
